Henry Belot

Construction company Hewatt Earthworks may have completed the majority of the Horse Park Drive extension in Gungahlin before passing into voluntary administration, but not without enduring a series of strange, dangerous and at times criminal incidents.

But documents obtained under freedom of information laws suggest financial woes weren't the company's only source of difficulty, with instances of vandalism, trespassing, workplace injuries, improper police access, and fuel spillages between May 2013 and March 2014.

Official incident-report sheets detailed matters as simple as holes in fences to the hospitalisation of workers and police investigations.

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Construction, Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) ACT branch secretary Dean Hall said many of the incidents detailed in the documents were not surprising, although workplace safety was never a trivial matter on construction sites.

"These incidents were unfortunate but sadly not uncommon on construction sites," he said.

"Every nine minutes on a construction site and worker is either killed or injured."

In November 2013, vandals reportedly broke into the construction site and caused "significant damage" to the compound by breaking windows and grafitting equipment and machinery.

The incident was reported to police who then examined the vandalism and lodged a report although any investigation was listed as closed on the incident sheet.

In March this year, a worker was taken to hospital with swelling, bruising, and numbness in his foot after he ran over himself with a remote controlled post-driver and subsequently missed three days of work.

"[The] operator was manoeuvring the post driver into position and ran over his own foot, with the safety bar hitting his shin," the incident report said.

When a police car drove through the construction site that same month without signing in, officers were stopped by workers and told they needed to have a proper induction before they could pass through the site.

The same applied for an ACT Government vehicle that attempted to drive through the site a month earlier without first reporting to the site office.

But these weren't the only incidents involving the improper use of vehicles or equipment malfunctioning.

A month earlier four Hewatt workers were caught sitting on the tray of a ute while it was driving and throwing sandbags off the back of the vehicle.

The workers were summoned by their superiors and told they had "operating outside Hewatt's Vehicle Operation Policy".

In October 2013, a worker drove his compactor too close to a steep embankment, got stuck on the edge of the slope, and required assistance from other workers.

In December 2013, mowing caused a fire in "unleased territory" with workers using fire extinguishers and a water cart to douse the flames before authorities investigated the matter.

On multiple occasions members of the public were seen on the construction site without permits, including one cyclist who was eventually "escorted" from the site by Hewatt staff.

A dump truck broke down leaking oil and coolant onto the road formation before being cleaned up by workers and recorded.

A contract worker was also caught placing concrete for sewer manholes at a height without adequate safety measures, prompting Hewatt to report the incident and detail work methods.

ACT WorkSafe Commissioner Mark McCabe said he was unsurprised but alarmed by the incidents.

"The ACT has the highest rate for serious injuries on construction sites in the country," he said.

"The type of work Hewatt were doing was rather dangerous dealing with heavy equipment so it's not out of context to see some incidents reported."

Horse Park Drive was the largest of eight contracts Hewatt Earthworks had with the ACT Government.

1 comment so far

Don't worry, Hewatt "something" will pop up somewhere soon, have no fear.